


Prose Edda

by Barid (Finale)



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997)
Genre: Abuse of Norse mythology, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 05:47:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29255460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Finale/pseuds/Barid
Summary: Claudia Strife was supposed to die in Nibelheim. The Old Gods were supposed to have drawn away from Gaia. Instead she lives, and they walk, and the story of the world changes.
Relationships: Sephiroth/Cloud Strife
Comments: 30
Kudos: 89





	Prose Edda

Here is how the story normally goes. A mother dies, a village burns, a son barely survives, the world nearly ends, and a villain obsesses over a hero. A sister never meets her brother, a mentor never sees his student again.

That’s not how the story goes here. 

* * *

The blow just barely misses being fatal.

Claudia allows herself to collapse, just far enough from the flames that she won’t have to deal with healing burns while dealing with a stab wound (and she questions how a supposed master swordsman could miss her heart). She hears Cloud scream and she closes her eyes. She senses her near-killer moving quickly, heading towards that _stupid_ reactor.

She can sense Cloud follow him. She doesn't want her son to follow him. She knows she has no way to stop him at the moment.

Claudia draws from within herself for the first time in almost thirty years, pale gold seidr dancing over her right hand, where she wears an old Nibel style bracer. But that’s nothing but brass and colored glass, and no one gets close enough to tell.

After all, why go near one of the only ones who still held faith in the Old Gods? The Aesir, the Vanir, the Jotnar? Why help a single mother with her young son? Why not tell your children to avoid him? After all, they’re the modern citizens of Nibelheim. They’re the ones who matter, not her family (she’s always found it odd Rupert’s family was the last to be polite to her).

She pulls on her seidr to heal the stab wound and stands.

She looks up the mountain to where the reactor and her son are.

She summons her swords to her hands, tucking them into her dress’s belt. 

She begins to walk, focusing on her goal.

She should stop the fire burning Nibelheim.

She doesn’t.

(You gave up your faith in Us, you will gain no help from Us)

* * *

The fight is dramatically more frustrating than it should be. It’s _lasting_ dramatically longer than it should be.

It had taken Sephiroth only five blows to disable Zackary. It had taken him only one strike to

cut down the ridiculously dressed guide. It should have at absolute best taken two blows to take down Zackary’s little trooper friend.

_The trooper he’s still fighting, and it’s been_ far _more than two blows._

The blond is holding the Buster Sword as easily as Angeal and Zackary did, and that completely mystifies him. Troopers aren’t enhanced, don’t train with swords, and even for a SOLDIER the Buster Sword is heavy and very hard to use. He’d always been half convinced it wasn’t wear and tear that kept Angeal from wanting to use it, but the sheer awkwardness of the weapon.

Awkwardness that the trooper is somehow avoiding. 

Sephiroth parries a blow, then frowns as he notices the trooper’s eyes.

The trooper had begun the fight with eyes a vivid shade of blue just short of a SOLDIER’s.

Now they’re a brilliant _gold_.

He resists the urge to shake his head and clear his thoughts. A distraction here could actually be a _problem_ . The change in the trooper’s eyes likely _did_ relate to his strange fighting abilities, but there wasn’t much he could do about it at the moment. Defeat the trooper, maybe not _kill_ him, but take him along with himself and Mother so he could look into it. That would be the most logical.

And then an opening comes, he parries again with Masamune, stabbing his longer blade through the trooper’s chest, just barely missing his heart. The boy drops the Buster Sword and Sephiroth lifts him up, a sneer crossing his face. In the end not good enou…

The trooper grabs _ahold_ of Masamune’s blade, one of the sharpest blades on Gaia, and pushes himself up the blade. Sephiroth is startled enough to not react fast enough, and somehow the boy pushes himself off Masamune, collapsing onto the floor, face pale, hands and chest bleeding heavily.

Heavily enough that blood loss should knock him unconscious soon. Fine to turn around and retrieve Mother.

A mistake that if he’d been less distracted by Her presence he’d never have made.

He picks up Her severed head and never gets the chance to turn back properly to the trooper. Instead the Buster Sword slams through his abdomen and he can only turn his head and drop Mother. There is the little trooper, face even paler from blood loss and gold eyes glowing eerily in the reactor’s light. The trooper yanks the sword back out but drops it, strength to hold it seeming to finally be failing him.

Instead, the trooper lunges at him, bleeding hands slamming right over the abdominal cut and forcing him over the nearby railing intended to protect workers from falling into the reactor’s mako pools. 

He slams into the mako and the current drags him down. He tries to reach out, find a way to stop himself from drowning. To find something to catch onto. 

(He mentally reaches out, and feels something of blood, soul, and gold… _catch_ )

* * *

Cloud’s eyes are huge as he stares down at the mako where Sephiroth has vanished into sickly green. He tries to take a deep breath and chokes, chest burning from the hole near his heart. He has no clue how Sephiroth could get so close to his heart and not kill him.

“Cloud! Cloud! Cloud, where are you?!” a familiar voice calls and what…?

“Ma?” he mumbles, barely strong enough to lift up his head. The adrenaline that had been keeping him going is fading and with the agony in his chest and hands he knows he’s bleeding heavily.

“Cloud,” Ma says, running down the gangway, two swords resting on her hips (where did she get those?), and a hole still in her dress where Sephiroth had stabbed _her_. 

A stab he thought had killed her. But there isn’t even an injury, just a tear in her dress.

But the stab he’d gotten hadn’t killed him either. Sephiroth had hit him just…above? his heart. And he’d been able to pull himself off the sword even though it should have cut entirely through his hands (he’d watched the man kill a _dragon_ with a single strike only a day ago).

“Shit Stormcloud,” Ma says, kneeling in front of him. Oh, wow he has to look bad if Ma is swearing. “Who did this to you?”

“Sephiroth,” Cloud croaks. “Zack!” he blurts out, realizing his friend is probably lying in a heap somewhere, badly hurt.

“I hope you mean Sephiroth hurt you and your friend Zack is injured,” Ma says, eyes flickering over him. “You look like my pin cushion.” Her hands are gentle as she touches his bloodstained shirt. He hadn’t noticed how many times he’d been hit by Sephiroth’s sword, but he hopes he gave as good as he got. 

The fight had been a haze, and Cloud isn’t entirely sure _how_ he managed to fight the SOLDIER. Zack’s sword should have been too heavy for him to lift, let alone fight with, but he knows he did. Somehow. And even more mystifyingly he’d managed to win. 

“Oh Nine Realms, you’ve had it happen already,” Ma says, suddenly brushing her thumbs under his eyes.

“What?” Cloud asks, giving her a confused look. What’s wrong with his eyes?

“Something I’ll explain in more depth later,” she says, helping him get up and guiding him off the walkway. She pauses to kick Jenova’s head off the platform. “Where is your friend? I’m assuming at least he isn’t at fault as well for your injuries?”

“He’s not,” Cloud says. “He gave me his sword and told me to stop Sephiroth. He was hurt badly.” And shit, the sword is still on the floor. “I somehow did.”

His Ma hums, expression thoughtful.

“We can’t leave his sword,” Cloud says, trying to pause. “It was his mentor’s.” Even if he doesn’t entirely like Commander Hewley because he made Zack kill him, it is still important to his friend.

She nods and heads back down the gangway and...somehow picks the sword up. His Ma has even less muscle than he does, how’d she do that?

“Okay, let’s keep going,” she says, not handing it to him. “Stormcloud, you are barely able to walk right now, you can’t carry it.” He closes his mouth, having just about been going to offer that.

Zack is barely conscious on the ground just beyond the walkway, having dragged himself into a corner where his Ma probably couldn’t have seen him. Zack gives them both a shaky smile as his Ma first puts the Buster Sword down carefully. 

She gives Zack a warm smile and then crouches down next him, obviously trying to get a closer look at the injuries. 

“It’ll be okay,” she says, lifting hands over Zack’s chest where the worst wound is. Then her hands began to glow...gold? Aren’t Cure materia supposed to glow _green_? And his Ma’s bracer, now that he can look closer at is nothing but brass and colored glass which isn’t right. 

You can’t cast with _colored glass_ of all things. 

“What in the world,” Ma says, frowning. “What was on that silver monster’s _blade_?” 

Cloud’s eyes go huge as he realizes what’s wrong. Even without whatever his Ma is doing, Zack should be healing already from his enhancements and he’s just... _not_. 

“Stormcloud, I’ll figure it out,” she says, giving him and Zack a warm smile again that he knows now is just hiding her worry. The gold surrounding her hands deepens, and Cloud can only hope.

_Crash!_

Cloud jerks his head up. His eyes go huge at the sight of a bunch of Turks and what looks to be some Shinra scientists. Ma turns to look over her shoulder and the warm smile she’d been giving him and Zack twists into something more mocking, something that he thinks the scientist and Turks can see.

Then gold light twists around them and they’re gone, leaving nothing but the trail of his blood and the pool of Zack’s.

(He makes one mistake; he forgets Tifa is at the reactor too)

* * *

“What the…?!” a familiar voice shouts, and then Claudia hears running footsteps. “Mom?!”

“Hnoss, get your sister,” Claudia orders, hands firm over Zack’s chest. The older teen is still bleeding badly even through her use of seidr and that makes her worry about what could have been on that silver monster’s sword. “I need her to heal Cloud and Zackary.”

“Got it!” Hnoss says, and Claudia hears her oldest daughter start running in the opposite direction. She hates that the first time she’s been in the same room as Hnoss in thirty three years it’s to order her to get her twin so they can heal their younger brother and his best friend.

“Ma?” Cloud asks, giving her a confused look. 

“It’s fine Stormcloud, more help is coming,” she promises. Then she grimaces slightly, realizing Cloud’s actual confusion; that a random woman referred to her as ‘mom’. Well, at least now he’ll get to meet his older sisters… 

“Mom?! What in the Realms happened?” Eir demands, her dark haired daughter all but sliding over to get her hands on Zack as quickly as she can. 

“A fight with a Calamity and what I hope wasn’t poison on his sword because Zackary’s injuries aren’t healing,” Claudia says. “And he should be healing _faster_ than the average human, not slower.”

“It’s not poison but his body is still reacting to _something_ ,” Eir says, hands just over Zack’s injuries. Her eyes turn completely gold and she presses down on Zack’s chest. 

Claudia stands up, knowing there’s nothing more she can do here. Eir is by far the better healer. She looks down at her hands which are coated in blood, both Cloud’s and his best friend’s. She walks forward to the familiar sight of an elegantly carved throne. A thin crown rests on the seat, and she picks it up.

(She reclaims her crown and throne and name, Freyja of the Vanir)

* * *

* * *

  * Kudos to those who can guess the people referenced in the opening paragraph. 
  * Norse mythology is being abused and used
  * Hnoss: Per Norse mythology one of the two daughters of Freyja. The name can mean ‘treasure’ and there’s some argument that she and Gersemi (whose name also means ‘treasure) could in fact be the same person. However, the idea that Freyja has two daughters led to…
  * Eir, who is based on the valkyrie Eir, who has a connection to medical skill. A valkyrie felt apt since Freyja is associated with them as well, in no little part because Freyja gets half of the heroic dead (with the other half going to Odin and Valhalla). Rather obviously Eir’s connection to medical skill is well, why she’s the medic sister.
  * Welcome to the start of something new, I am making terrible life choices. You can find me over on tumblr at barid-bel-medar




End file.
